Quick recap for those who don't know.... ex has seen ds twice in the last year, each time for 3 hours (once in October 2009 and once in March 2010). He had the opportunity to see ds 3 days in October 2009, 3 days in November 2009, 3 days in December 2009, 3 days in March 2010 and 7 days in July 2010. He chose to see him 2 days for a total of 6 hours. He took me to court in July 2010, demanding more time with ds (unsupervised- he hasn't had ds unsupervised in 5 years). We attempted to settle it outside of court.

Plan was that if he called ds twice a week and if he visited ds here in Kentucky in July, August, or September, he would be able to visit with ds unsupervised this coming weekend (3 hours Friday, 3 hours Saturday, 3 hours Sunday). My lawyer attempted to contact him numerous times in the last 3 months. Ex refuses to talk to his lawyer about it so his lawyer can't tell my lawyer anything. He refuses to talk to me about it also.

He just sent a text to me that said he got time off work for those unsupervised visits this weekend.

My response? "Since you failed to respond to my lawyers numerous attempts at contacting you for the last 3 months, you should already know that there will be no unsupervised visits. There is no agreement between us, as you failed to even attempt to work with myself and my lawyer on this issue. Owen will be available to visit with you in a public place during those times. Please let me know where you would like to meet on each of those days."

Did he really think there was any chance I was sending my child, my AUTISTIC CHILD, with a virtual stranger? HELLO?!?

You had to know this was coming just base don the track record..... after all what would he tell the new wife, LOL! Yes it will be back in court but one thing you did not mention in your response to him is that HE FAILED to honor the agreement that was established (visit to O in his home state), HE FAILED to communicate with your attorney ---- this was his choice.

Even still I know this must be frustrating. Just wondering but when you get married and the insurance and co-payment for O's dad for such cost change will you be able to cover it financially if he does not? Or does he have a job that will ensure he cannot skip out of those payments?

"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way and not starting." - Buddha.

You had to know this was coming just base don the track record..... after all what would he tell the new wife, LOL! Yes it will be back in court but one thing you did not mention in your response to him is that HE FAILED to honor the agreement that was established (visit to O in his home state), HE FAILED to communicate with your attorney ---- this was his choice.

This is not entirely true..... because there was NO agreement between us. The lawyers were supposed to work it out. My lawyer continually told his lawyer that one thing I wouldn't budge on was he needed to visit Owen. But HIS lawyer is telling my lawyer that ex is refusing to talk to him (his own lawyer!) about it! Since he won't talk to the lawyers and he won't talk to me, there was NEVER a signed agreement about any visitation. None. At all. So he couldn't have failed to honor the agreement, because he refused to even work with us on MAKING an agreement. Which my lawyer explains bumps it back to the last signed paper about it (from the judge, 6 years ago, that basically says he gets visitation at my discretion).

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Just wondering but when you get married and the insurance and co-payment for O's dad for such cost change will you be able to cover it financially if he does not? Or does he have a job that will ensure he cannot skip out of those payments?

We have a wonderful child support system that it is currently going through and they take everything directly out of his paycheck before he even has a chance to not pay. Should he decide to stop working altogether, then we'd have issues. As big of a *** as he is, I don't think he'll do that. His wife doesn't seem like the kind of person to be okay with supporting him and 2 kids and working her butt off to do it He's been at this same job for 8 or so years now. He lives in a small town so if he quit it would be very hard for him to find a new job, which I don't think his wife would appreciate!

However, if he does find a way to skip payments, dp and I will do whatever it takes to continue to get O the therapy and stuff he needs. We would probably end up putting our TTC stuff on the back burner for a bit (if I wasn't already pregnant) or I would end up going back to work earlier than planned (if I do get pregnant I plan on taking a year off work and either a year off school or taking a very light load). Also, if he starts skipping out on payments that would be the perfect time to approach him about just signing over his rights. Then dp can adopt ds and ex can be gone for good.

sad as it may be steph, it wont surprise me ONE bit if he never replies to your text.

So far he hasn't. If he doesn't then there's not much I can do. I offered to meet him somewhere so he can see ds. If he refuses.... that's on him. He can explain to the Judge why he skipped 2 weekend visits in July (one of them being his regularly scheduled visit and the other being the weekend before he and I were in court) and why he skipped this visit.... as well as everything else.

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in fact it wont surprise me either if he stops calling frequently and then completely stops.

Oh, it won't surprise me either. That's what my lawyer is predicting happens too. Only time will tell....

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does he now at least buy the 'autism' bit?

I have no clue... he doesn't talk to me! Which is probably one of the most frustrating things is he refuses to talk to me. At all. He knows NOTHING about ds. Has no idea what kind of therapies he's in, what we're currently working on, what kind of discipline works, what doesn't, what sensory issues he has, how to avoid them, how to deal with them if they crop up, no idea what kind of medication he's on, etc etc. How in the world are you going to co-parent a child (especially one you haven't been involved with for 5 years) if you refuse to actually talk to the other parent?!? I have a feeling Chickadee has convinced ex that because she has a sibling with autism then she's an expert and she knows everything there is to know about autism. She may know ONE PERSON with autism and how to work with that ONE PERSON, but that doesn't mean she knows about MY CHILD with autism, ya know? All kids/people are different so you can't say "oh, I know what works with this person with autism so it will work with every person with autism". Doesn't work that way

I am actually hoping, for their son and their unborn baby's sake, they drop this nonsense and just disappear. One of ds's issues is he reacts suddenly and in unexpected ways. He doesn't always understand what he's doing and he doesn't get that his quick actions can hurt other people. For example- yesterday dp had the tv remote. DS wanted to watch something. Instead of just asking dp for the remote he head-butted dp. Hard. Today dp's eye is a lovely shade of black/blue and it's swollen almost all the way shut. DS had NO IDEA that was going to happen. He just reacted quickly without thinking it through (the same way he just runs away in a parking lot because he doesn't actually think through the consequence- that he could get hit by a car).

Since ex refuses to learn about ds's issues and how to handle them I have a bad feeling they are just going to ignore it all and then something bad will happen to one of their other children If ds is reading a book and the baby takes it I could see ds pushing past without realizing he's much bigger than the baby and the baby could get hurt when he pushes him. Of course that then sets ds up for ex smacking/spanking/whatever him, which I would be absolutely furious over.

oh yeah steph. i hear you. i hope they drop the nonsense too. esp. when he doesnt even really consider O his son. ya know. O's just a money drainer. that breaks my heart. O doesnt need such people in his life.

woah woah woah. yup yup. the repercussions and the possibilities that could happen woah. yeah that's a whole other deal.

you know i HOPE ex not knowing STAYS that way for now. i hope he doesnt ask you ANYTHING. so that if he goes to court his lack of knowledge will make your case even stronger. beyond how strong it already is.

Quick update from my phone... He didn't see owen. He called me up, threatening me this morning. I told him his threats mean nothing to me and he was welcome to bring it back to court. I told him that I would meet him somewhere for him to see own this morning and, if owen did well, then we could talk about doing 2 hours supervised and 1 hour unsupervised tomorrow and if that went well then all 3 hours unsupervised sunday. WAY more generous than I should have been. He got pissed off and saidhe was going to talk to his lawyer and cal me back. I asked if he was going to see owen today (it was about an hour before he was supposed to see him). He told me again that he was contacting his lawyer and he would call me back. I didn't hear from him so about 15 minutes after his time was supposed to start I sent him a text saying that I had owen at the mcdonalds in his town and if he wanted to come see him there then please contact me within the next 30 minutes. We stayed for 45 minutes but didnt hear from him. It's now 9 hours since I heard from him, so I doubt i'll hear from him at all today. I doubt I'll hear from him for the rest of the weekend. If he completely blows off owen all weekend I will love to hear him explain to the judge why it's better to not see ds at all rather than see him supervised for part of the visit to make sure ds is comfortable before we leave them alone. If he doesn't see ds this weekwnd his next chance will be in december. He hasn't seen ds since march.

Quick update... Got a text from him tonight. More demands for unsupervised time tomorrow, more threats.... Blah, blah, blah. I'm not giving in. He can take me back to court but I am not giving in to his demands. He can't even talk to me like a decent human. He just threatens and demands.

Quick update... Got a text from him tonight. More demands for unsupervised time tomorrow, more threats.... Blah, blah, blah. I'm not giving in. He can take me back to court but I am not giving in to his demands. He can't even talk to me like a decent human. He just threatens and demands.

it really blows my mind how fair you are Steph. you keep giving him the benefit of the doubt. every. single. step. of. the. way. when you dont have to at all. but you always, always play fair. that is what i admire most about you.

nope. see him in court if it comes to that. i am right there with you.

another quick update... in the texts last night ex said he was going to call me at 8 for a 9am visit. It's just a few minutes until 9 and no call. Shocking. No matter what, he is not getting ds alone this weekend.

I originally thought he was pushing for unsupervised because he wanted his cs reduced (in the last year he got married, had a baby and another is on the way). I have a gut feeling now that he wasn't going to return owen to me if he got him unsupervised this weekend. There is no signed agreement between us on visitation this weekend, which also means theres nothing signed saying he had to return owen to me.

I have to wonder why on earth he wouldn't return O to you? He hasn't been interested in parenting for 5 YEARS - O doesn't even consider him "dad".

You probably can't answer that, and I COMPLETELY agree that listening to Mama gut is SO important, ALWAYS, but I just wonder why on earth he would keep him? I mean, he doesn't even consider him his child, yk?

He has no interest in owen, but he has lots of interest in hurting me. He knows one way to do that is through owen. I have to wonder if someone else told him about the loophole (no signed paper means it would be hard for me to prove he was supposed to return owen) and put the idea in his head that he could/should keep owen as "proof" to the judge that he wants extended time with ds. Not good reasoning at all, but has he ever had good reasoning??

He has no interest in owen, but he has lots of interest in hurting me. He knows one way to do that is through owen. I have to wonder if someone else told him about the loophole (no signed paper means it would be hard for me to prove he was supposed to return owen) and put the idea in his head that he could/should keep owen as "proof" to the judge that he wants extended time with ds. Not good reasoning at all, but has he ever had good reasoning??

Uh.....really??? Does he ACTUALLY think that would fly? It wouldn't. It would, however, make it VERY clear to ANY judge that he has to have supervised visitation b/c otherwise he won't even return him! (since he hasn't seen him except for very rarely in 4-5 years there is NO QUESTION that O belongs with YOU! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out )

Ugh. I know you already know all of this. I know that I'm preaching to the choir. Ugh. Your ex makes me mad and I wouldn't know him if he ran into me. Ugh.

Ugh. Your ex makes me mad and I wouldn't know him if he ran into me. Ugh.

This! I don't think I'll ever be able to set foot in the state of Michigan without giving every man the evil eye just in case it is "him". Thank goodness, I don't have any reason to travel that way any time soon.

How is O holding up? I hope he is having a grand time with his grandfather and is blissfully unaware of the drama. Stay strong- you're doing great!

Never did hear from ex at all today. We did spend 3 1/2 hours with his family (sister, her kids and his mom).

I thought ds was doing okay and completely oblivious to what was happening. Until ex's sister started talking about ex and telling ds "if you go to m's house tomorrow then i'll bring my kids to play with you there". Wtf? Shes going to get an email telling her to knock out off and stop talking about ex or I will no longer be willing to allow her to see ds. That just confused the crap out of ds

Okay, I'm actually posting from a computer instead of my phone so I can include more details! So Friday morning comes and ex calls about an hour before his "visit" was supposed to start. He started demanding his alone time, threatening to take me back to court (to which I chuckled and told him "go ahead" ). I kept my cool and told him he could see Owen supervised on Friday and then if ds did okay we would talk about some unsupervised on Saturday. He flipped out, said "I'm contacting my lawyer and I suggest you do the same and I'll call you back later". By the time his "visit" was supposed to start I hadn't heard from him. So we decided to take ds to the McDonalds close to ex's town (there's a playland in that one) and sent ex a message telling him ds would be there and he was welcome to come spend some time with him. No response.

I didn't hear from him again until Friday night, when I got another threatening text, demanding alone time with ds on Saturday. I sent him a text explaining that he could do his supervised time on Saturday and if ds did okay then we could discuss some unsupervised time on Sunday (though at this point my gut was telling me to not even offer him that). I told him to contact me with where he wanted to meet on Saturday. He texted that he was going to call me at 8am.

Saturday morning came and I never heard from ex. Ex's sister ended up contacting me and asking to see ds. I agreed to meet her and her kids at McDonalds (again ) so ds and her kids could play. We met them at 11am (which was during what was supposed to be ex's visit). I texted ex letting him know that ds was there and he could come see ds. Never heard from him. The bogus part of that is ex's sister told me that ex had to work at 1:00. We were at McDonalds until about 12:30. Ex works just 2 minutes away from that McDonalds so he easily could have gone to see ds at McDonalds, even for just a few minutes, before he went to work. Anyway, ex's sister said that ex's mom was asking for me to bring ds to her house so she could give ds his b-day gift. I agreed and we went over there after McDonalds. DS played in her front yard and opened his gifts for another 2 hours. So we spent 3 1/2 hours with ex's family today.

Didn't hear from ex until just a few minutes ago when I received another text (at 11pm!). Again, demanding alone time with ds tomorrow morning, threatening with court, saying I was in "violation of our agreement". What he doesn't understand is THERE IS NO AGREEMENT. There is NOTHING in writing. NOTHING. He has NOTHING to show a Judge and say "she agreed to this but wouldn't follow it". He refused for 3 months to talk to my lawyer and get papers signed, so there isn't any agreement between us at all! I'm in violation of NOTHING! I sent him a very non-emotional text (I'm not going to get baited with his crap and blow up on him) that said ds will be available in a public area from 8-11am, with me there. I told him to let me know where he wanted to meet ASAP. Bet I don't hear from him

I seriously have no idea what he's going to do. Does he really plan on standing up in front of a Judge and saying "well, she wouldn't let me see him alone so I thought it would be better to not see him at all than to see him supervised". Seriously? WTF? What is he going to tell a Judge when the Judge finds out that out of the last 21 days ds has been available to see him (from October 2009 until today- tomorrow will be day 22) he's only chosen to see ds for *2* of those days. 2. That's it. 6 hours total. In 1 year. How is he going to explain that he had a week off work in September, knew he hadn't seen ds since March and yet decided to sit on his butt all week playing video games instead of taking a couple days to visit ds?

Quick update... it's after 9, ex's visit time started at 8. Never heard a word from him. He seriously went the whole weekend without seeing ds. I dont even know what to say. I'll talk to my lawyer tomorrow but we will end up in court next month. Only question is who initiates it? I'm thinking i'll beat him to the punch and file papers with the court first. Since ds will be in school next month he likely won't come with me when I go up there to court so the next chance ex has at seeing ds will be in december- 9 months since the last time he saw ds. Wtf is he thinking????